


Walls of Light and Colour

by dedougal



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:16:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/pseuds/dedougal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is a visiting art historian and Jared, well, Jared is just there, in Paris, when Jensen gets caught in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls of Light and Colour

The city wakes slowly. It starts with a grey haze, a haze that could be light or could be just the final sigh of night. It’s never properly dark, of course. Endless rows of looping streetlights turn the night sky into a pale orange. There isn’t that sharp pure darkness of a warm night back home, more stars than you can hope to count shining for you. No stars visible here, that’s for sure. But the city more than makes up for it.

It’s too hot. It’s been too hot since he arrived, three weeks ago. Jensen pushes the window open another fraction, hoping to catch another smidgen of breeze, of air. The noise from outside is still muted, deadened by the greyness. There’s the ever present hum of traffic, the clanking of shutters being pushed open. A buzz that could be radio, television, voices. Paris never sleeps, like New York and London. Like Tokyo. There’s always someone awake to talk to when the jet lag turns the day topsy-turvy, for example; a shop to sell you something to remind you of home. But it is as quiet as it gets when the city wakes slowly.

The stereotype is that you can see the Eiffel Tower from every window in Paris. Jensen laughed at that before he came here. The tower does dominate every landscape, every view, just about. He’s not got the courage up to climb it yet. He’s stood at the bottom with the street vendors and brass bands and endless heaving crowds and looked up at the bare metal. Something so mechanical shouldn’t be quite as impressive. He needs to lean out over the balcony dangerously to catch a glimpse. But a glimpse is all he needs, now and again. It centres him, locates him. Reminds him that this is the real world and not some dream that he’s having, safe back in his sterile apartment back in Dallas.

The heat reminds him of that too. It’s so damn hot during the day – as it should be in the middle of summer, right enough. And he’s no delicate flower. He’s worked through weather much warmer than this, turned his freckles through lobster peeling skin to tanned leather. It’s the humidity that gets to him just like back at home. The humidity and the fact that the room, no matter how clean and pleasant, seems to lack any sort of proper ventilation. He’s taken so many showers, letting the water sluice over his overheated body. He’s not getting any sun, not really. He’s indoors most of the time, inhaling dust and grime in rooms that were constructed to keep the heat in through the long winter rather than to be cool in the summer. Although they are cool to start with, often buried deep into the earth while the city rose around them. By the end of the day, the stacks and libraries are hot though. Airless. And Jensen needs another shower, but he always seems to be stopped before he quite gets there.

It doesn’t help that he seems to be sharing his bed more nights than not. The heat of another body between the sheets makes it quite intolerable. But he can’t blame Jared for that at all. Jensen turned from the window where the soft light made the rest of the room more shadowy than bright. It was still night in here, and Jared was fast asleep, arms and legs starfished across the bed, white sheet barely covering his hips.

Jared was naked. Jensen knew Jared was naked because he had undressed him, stripped him and let Jared do the same to him. He felt more than unclothed under Jared’s sharp gaze, under his warm mouth (Jensen never minded the moist heat from that). He was beyond naked, mind, lungs, heart open and on display. Jensen didn’t know Jared in the same way. There was a sadness, a sharp quietude under the boisterous flamboyant exterior. Jared had secrets. Why else was he in Paris, away from his friends and family and real life? Jensen was afraid to ask, afraid to pry because he was afraid that by knowing he would drive Jared away. And he liked the boisterous, the full bodied laughs. It made him feel more alive somehow.

Jensen stepped closer, admiring how the hot night had made Jared glorious and golden. His muscles were sweat slicked and would be sleep warm and soft to the touch. His legs were nearly too long for the bed, miles of skin that were paths Jensen had traced with his fingers, his lips. He wanted to worship Jared, coming across kinks, buttons, desires that he’d never had before. The final vertebrae on Jared’s spine was as equally worthy of attention as the one at the top hidden by Jared’s hair until he ducked his head to offer the skin to Jensen’s mouth. Every single tiny bone in his wrist left Jensen wanting to know and cherish and love. The moles were too easy to trace patterns between, leaving sigils behind in the wake of his tongue. His laugh, his smile, the way his eyes darkened when Jensen stood before him, kissed his jaw, offered himself up as a sacrifice to the man he barely knew.

Jared let out a soft snore and Jensen smiled and he knew he smiled because he loved the idea that he was learning something new about Jared. Jensen’s skin felt cooler in the breeze from the window but he had no urge to sleep. Instead he grabbed his notebook on the way back to the bed and settled against Jared once more. Jared rolled and placed his arm over Jensen’s thighs. A casual gesture that said mine and yours and always. Jensen settled his glasses on his nose and started to read.

 

Jensen had met Jared during a rainstorm. He had been in Paris for three hours, near endless flight from LAX finally over and exhausted and seeing double. The rain had gone from dry to drenched in instants. It drummed an entire percussion range – bass, snare, bongos – off street and sidewalk, cars and trash cans, and off Jensen. He had stood, unable to move or think or do anything other than feel the slap, slap, slap through his clinging clothes until a large hand had grabbed him and pulled him under an awning. He’d looked up into dancing eyes and felt himself lost.

Jared was Texan like him, in Paris and gay. He wore a scarf despite the summer weather and always smiled, broad even teeth outshining the sun. Jensen wasn’t sure if Jared worked in or owned the small chocolate shop he dragged Jensen to. He slid behind the counter and whisked up a coffee that made Jensen feel alive for the first time in hours. Jensen sat at the granite topped bar and sipped more slowly at his next cup, soaked the hard almond biscotti in his mouth until it was soft enough to crunch.

The heat, even within the tiny air conditioned shop dried him quickly. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair flattened against his head. He knew there’d be dark shadows etched underneath his eyes and instead of thinking about any of that, he sat and watched Jared talk about nothing, long fingers inscribing charms in the air. Bewitched, enchanted, ensorcelled – there was no word strong enough to describe the pull that Jensen felt. Jared teased information out of him, pulling it out of him despite the fact Jensen never really opened up to anyone, not like this, not to people he barely knew. Not to anyone.

The storm ended, he hailed a cab, he left Jared behind.

 

La Sainte-Chapelle was more than a holy chapel. It was a reliquary of stone and glass, built to hold a nation’s most precious act of faith. The crown of thorns that it once held was long gone, thorns scattered far and wide to the faithful and the proud, but the building stood in splendour. Jensen knew it to be one of the first places he’d visit, before the Louvre, before Notre Dame, even before that damned Eiffel Tower. He would be coming in early one morning, before dawn, to see its glories as the sun rose, but there was a part of him that was afraid of being overcome. To see it now, buffered by the hundreds of tourists, in the middle of the bright hot day, it would temper his shock.

There’s a reaction when you actually see or touch or be in a place that you’ve read about all your life. A moment of incredulity, an urge to pinch yourself. Sometimes it disappoints, sure enough. When a place, an object blown up on the pages of a thousand textbooks, turns out to be small and grubby and not at all glorious. Then there’s this. The sights, smells, tastes, sounds turn it from dry and dusty history to living truth. The Chapel was no different. Jensen shuffled through the queue, through the chattering cameras, through the bored looking teenagers intent on phones rather than the sights. He clutched his tiny paper brochure in trembling hands, not caring he was melting the paper. He knew this place, but only in theory. Seeing it was worth a thousand distractions.

He barely noticed the richly painted walls, the elegant spires of one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city. He held the litany of facts behind his eyes as he let himself be overwhelmed by the walls of stained glass.

Later, Jensen wouldn’t remember how long he’d stood there, turning, eyes drinking it in. Time itself had no meaning against his awe. He’s fed and watered, nourished, by the sight. He wants to sit on the stark benches in the middle of the floor and stay forever. It took Jared to bring him out of it, a warm figure suddenly pressed up against his side, arms around his waist and a head on his shoulder.

“I knew I’d find you here.”

Jensen looked at this interloper in the broken glorious light split into a thousand jewel tones and smiled. They went to the apartment the University had put him up in and fucked for the first time. It was as well that the taxi driver drove like hell hounds were on his trail, else their show in the back of the cab would have been more suited to a back alley club in Montmartre than in this pristine, prissy arrondissement.

 

The light, or maybe the heat of the sun in the room, woke Jared eventually. His arm tightened over Jensen’s thighs, checking he was there, perhaps. Jensen didn’t know what Jared thought, not of him, of the city, even of the coffee that he peeled Jared’s arm back to go and make. Part of him knew he didn’t care. Part of him knew Jared was here for as long as he was here and when he climbed onto the train back to Charles de Gaulle that there was no chance they’d see each other again.

“Two days.”

Jensen jumped. He hadn’t expected Jared to follow him into the tiny galley kitchen. Normally Jared tried to bury himself into the mattress until Jensen brought a mug of coffee with an aftertaste of charcoal through. “What?”

“I’m right. You’ve only got two more days. Two more nights.” Jared fitted his naked body along Jensen’s back. They were in front of a window but it looked over a tiny chimney stack of a courtyard and they were three stories up. Jensen wanted to back Jared up, away, from the daylight and the idea that anyone could see them. No one else got to see this.

Not for two more days.

Jensen nodded, hands shaking as he measured out the fine ground powder. Jared made it worse by kissing up his neck, tongue and teeth finding the marks he’d already drawn in the delicate skin. Jensen should stop, make Jared drink the coffee, have his shower and head out with his notebook into the dusty stacks he was here to mine for treasures. He had articles due, maybe a book that would find its way onto shelves in yet more library stacks to gather grime.

He tipped his head back. “Do you… want?” He was actually nervous about asking. “To stay?”

“Today?” Jared’s voice was muffled by the fact he’d pressed his face into Jensen’s hair.

Jensen thought about what to say. He could say that he wanted Jared for the day, for the two more nights. He could ask him to fuck and then to forget all about him.

“In Paris?” It took a long time for Jensen to get the whole phrase out. His voice cracked over it. Jared didn’t stiffen or freeze or pull back. Instead he moulded his body more firmly to Jensen’s, letting his hands roam, wild all of a sudden, pulling at the waistband of Jensen’s boxers, not satisfied until Jensen was hard, panting against him, one hand holding the counter and the other blinding reaching to turn Jared’s face into his searching kiss.

When his come was cooling against his belly and Jared’s fingers were being cleaned by his tongue, Jensen realised Jared hadn’t been hard at all.

 

Outside was cooler, more comfortable oddly enough. Jensen hadn’t bothered showering before they left the house to find breakfast. He didn’t have to convince any draconian librarians that he was serious, subservient and entirely respectful of the books they were leery of letting him consult. No ingrained American prejudice to face today. Instead he trailed around behind Jared, eyes hidden by too big sunglasses and messed up hair hidden by a baseball cap. He was in a Longhorns shirt and jeans and he suddenly didn’t care.

He wanted to be home.

Jared was leading him, Jensen followed and he worried unexpectedly about where they were going. The crowds were a clue. Rounding a corner and Jensen’s breath sucked out of his chest. He could see a carnival in the distance, the pyramid of the Louvre glinting light back at the sun. A brass band, uniformed, was slowly assembling, instruments polished. A trumpeter led off and the other instruments joined in, slow at first, in a tune that spoke of joy and marching. Jensen wanted to tap his fingers against his side, find a stick and wave it in the air as if he were conducting, like a child to the radio.

Jared hummed tunelessly under his breath as he dragged Jensen towards the base of the Eiffel Tower. He checked his watch and walked past the snake of tourists that wound itself in between the legs, tripping the huge structure. Jared pulled tickets out of his pocket and led them to a shorter queue.

“You okay with this?” His face was unreadable behind his aviators. Jensen nodded, eyes taking in the entrance, the elevator, the height. He swallowed and nodded again.

 

They stayed quiet all the way to the top. It wasn’t usual. Jared normally talked, incessantly, about every single subject that passed through his brain. He had no filter, no sense of sequence, jumping from topic to topic. Jensen let it sweep over him, lift him up. Usually. Up here, vertigo starting to bite at his extremities (It had stood for age, right? How old was the Tower really? What would happen if…?) he wished for Jared to speak, to point out everything, anything. Jared was silent.

The viewing platform was bustling busy, people everywhere. Jensen dutifully snapped a few pictures before staring, more blind than anything, at the city below. Jared had patiently waited his turn at the rail and leaned close, taking everything in, pressed against the criss-cross of wires. Automatically, Jensen raised his camera again. But he wasn’t taking a picture of the city anymore. Jared was all he could see.

It was finally cold up here, the wind whipping at his clothes. It was pleasant, finally.

Jared seemed to drink his fill, slowly making his way around the platform while Jensen hugged the inside wall as much as he was able, people always between him and the edge. They were back to the exit when Jared turned to him, sunglasses pushed up to keep his hair from flying into his face, eyes brighter than before.

Jensen looked at the arm outstretched before taking it, allowing himself to be drawn in and close and wrapped in Jared’s arms before he was turned back to the rail. Jensen felt all his muscles tighten – fight or flight started to flare – before he held tight, opened his eyes and looked.

Jared wouldn’t let him fall.

“I’m going to explain something. And it’s going to sound weird. But I’ve been thinking about how to put it. And this is all I came up with.” Every stuttered sentence brought Jensen closer to the certainty that his faith was misplaced. “I’m. It’s. You – You’re like that stupid Chapel.”

“What?” Jensen’s worry didn’t abate one iota.

“Let me finish. It’s beautiful on the outside, right. Decorated and pretty, hard. And you can guess that the inside is going to be gorgeous too because you get these glimpses of windows and colour. But it’s not until you step inside, right, that you know it’s this incredible place. That those hints of colour turn into, like, walls of light.” Jared seemed to run out of steam. Jensen was a little worried.

“It’s a reliquary. A building built as a reliquary. It’s okay on the outside but everything precious and holy is inside, so that has to be even more amazing.” Lecture mode came easy. Safe.

Jared laughed into his hair. Then dropped a kiss onto it. “Cool. So your heart is something precious right.”

“This isn’t going to go somewhere gross where you talk about opening me up? Or penetrating?” Jensen tried to keep his voice for Jared’s ears only. From the glance he received from the woman beside him, he guessed he was mistaken.

Jared squeezed him tighter. “I guess I’m trying to say yes, I’ll stay.”

“In Paris?” Jensen was surprised Jared couldn’t hear the thundering of his heart, the sudden wild untameable hope that could not be crushed.

“With you.” Jared kissed his cheek, his neck, and finally Jensen gave in and turned his head to kiss Jared full, lips wet and promising. They pulled apart and Jensen looked from side to side. No one cared, no one noticed. They were just another couple kissing at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

When they finally touched ground (Jensen wasn’t quite sure he was, just yet. Maybe he was still floating) and walked with purpose back towards Jensen’s rooms, consummation on their minds, a sudden thought flashed across Jensen’s mind.

“Was that your first time?” Jared stilled and stopped. Then he nodded. “You’ve lived in Paris for how long and you’ve never been up the Eiffel Tower?” Jensen knew he sounded shrill.

Jared let out a shrug and started walking again. “Never been to Notre-Dame, or the Louvre or anywhere really. Didn’t want to. But I had to go up the Eiffel Tower before I left.”

Jensen fell into step, side by side with Jared. He smiled.

Jared had planned this, had bought the tickets in advance. Jensen’s suspicions were right. “What would you have said? To get me to stay rather than to go?”

Jared smiled down at him. “You asked first. And, after all, I think it’s time to head home.”


End file.
